The Top 10 Corporate Social Media Disasters

A picture posted on Burger
King's Twitter when it was hacked by AnonymousAnonymous

Social media can be a great way for brands to engage with
customers. But when a campaign backfires, the meltdowns are
painful and all too public. Here are the best of the worst social
media campaigns.

Here's our pick of the social media setbacks...

1. JP Morgan "Snarkpocalypse"

Wall Street bank JP Morgan was at the centre of a social media
storm earlier this month when it invited Twitter users to send
questions to an executive using the hashtag #AskJPM.

The Twitterverse responded with a storm of abuse. More than 8,000
responses were sent within a six-hour period, according to social
media tracking service Topsy. Two out of every three comments
sent were negative.

The original idea behind the tweet-up was to give students the
opportunity to communicate directly with Jimmy Lee, one of JP
Morgan's most senior bankers and a key executive on the Twitter
share sale.

The live Q&A was due to take place on November 14th, but by
the previous afternoon, the company tweeted:“Tomorrow’s Q&A
is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.”

The bank has been in the spotlight this year over its $13bn
settlement for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities and the
$6bn London Whale trading losses.

Abusive tweets included: “Quick! You’re in a room with no key, a
chair, two paper clips, and a lightbulb. How do you defraud
investors?”, and “What’s your favourite type of whale? #AskJPM”.

Twitter: Layoff List - #askjpm
Is it easier to purchase a congressional representative or a
senator?

Twitter: Chris Lee - Why is it when the poor commit crimes we
need more cops and mandatory sentences and when the rich commit
crimes we need deregulation #askJPM

Twitter: Lindsey Sine - But really, we better stop making fun of
#askJPM
before they find a way to monetize the hillarity and charge us
for our enjoyment at 33% APR

2. British Gatastrophe

JP Morgan is not alone in attracting the ire of social media
users through an ill-advised online Q&A.

In October, British Gas decided to hold a "tweet-up" on the same
day as it announced price rises of 10pc, prompting a huge social
media backlash. Its #AskBG campaign, manned by Bert Pijls, the
company’s customer service director, was hijacked by users asking
questions like, “My office has a window where the sun comes in
and makes the side of my head really hot. How much do I owe you?”

3. Mayday for British Airways

The rise of social media has created a new way for consumers to
taunt corporate brands: complaintvertising. This is the method of
buying prominent advertising space on Twitter or Facebook to air
a grievance.

British Airways found out about this new trend the hard way
earlier this year, when Hasan Syed used Twitter's self-service ad
platform to post a promoted tweet, which read: "Don't fly
@British_Airways. Their customer service is horrendous."

Mr Syed, a hair-care entrepreneur based in Chicago, had flown
business class on the airline with his father on a trip to Paris.
When BA lost his father's luggage and failed to respond to his
complaint on Twitter, he took matters into his own hands.

Mr Syed spent over $1,000 on his smear campaign and his angry
tweets were seen by more than 50,000 Twitter users in the UK and
New York markets where his promoted tweet ran.

4. Twitter shouts itself hoarse at Tesco

The UK's leading supermarket failed to update its auto-tweets
when it was embroiled in the horse meat scandal earlier this
year. The pre-scheduled tweet read: "It's sleepy time so we're
off to hit the hay. See you at 8am for more #TescoTweets."

Thousands of users complained about the tweet and @UKTesco later
responded: "I’m terribly sorry. That tweet was scheduled before
we knew of the current situation. We’d never intend to make light
of it."

The following day, Tesco placed full-page adverts in several
national newspapers to apologise for the "unacceptable"
situation, vowing to ensure it "never happens again".

5. McDonald’s cautionary tale

McDonald's sponsored the hashtag #McDStories in January 2012,
asking users to tweet in about positive dining experiences at its
restaurants. Instead, respondents joked about obesity and dog
food.

The burger company pulled the campaign within two hours but users
were still tweeting the abandoned hashtag a week after it was
removed.

6. Counterfeit Burger King

In February, the popular burger franchise fell foul to some
hacktivists who changed Burger King's account name to McDonald's
and added a new bio that stated, "Just got sold to McDonalds
because the whopper flopped =[ FREEDOM IS FAILURE."

"Look for McDonald's in a hood near you!"

This was followed by a string of fake tweets containing racial
slurs, obscenities and references to drugs.

McDonald's drew further attention to the plight of its rival by
tweeting: "We empathize with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest
assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking."

7. Quantas Bashtag

British Airways isn't the only airline to nosedive in the social
media stakes. In 2011, Qantas Airways asked customers to write in
about their dream in-flight experiences using the hashtag
#QuantasLuxury. Instead of being sent wistful flights of fancy,
the airline received a deluge of negative posts, mostly
concerning the carrier's industrial disputes with three unions,
which resulted in the grounding of the entire Qantas fleet on
October 29.

Quantas is a serial offender on the social media slip-up list. It
once ran a Rugby Union competition that asked Wallabies fans to
paint their faces black to win a prize.

8. Disobeying His Master's Voice

In January this year, a social media exec for music chain HMV
tweeted the mass firing of 190 staff live from HMV's proprietary
account. The first tweet announced: ""We're tweeting live from HR
where we're all being fired! Exciting!!!", follwed by: "There are
over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal
employees who love the brand".

Unfortunately for HMV, even its inability to lock the outgoing
staff out of the social network was broadcast to the masses. The
rogue @hmvtweets tweeter wrote: "Just overheard our Marketing
Director (he's staying, folks!) ask 'How do I shut down
Twitter?'"

9. Amy's Baking Company gets burnt

Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona, was featured in an
episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, which aired on May
10th, 2013. It was the first time Mr Ramsay had walked off the
show.

The episode prompted a surge of negative feedback on the
restaurant's Facebook page. The two owners Samy and Amy Bouzaglo
reacted by posting a rant against the “haters” who were crippling
their business. The social media storm spilled out onto Reddit
and Yelp, with the Bouzaglos responding to disgruntled users
using foul language and all-caps.

There were nearly 1,000 comments posted to Reddit before the
thread was removed and commenting was disabled.

10. Home Depot

When Home Depot tweeted the image below to its 165,000 or so
users in November, the US-based DIY store received hundreds of
tweets accusing the chain of racism.

Home Depot tried to calm the wrathful Twittersphere with a series
of apology tweets: "We have zero tolerance for anything so stupid
and offensive. Deeply sorry. We terminated agency and individual
who posted it" but the image was retweeted thousands of times
nonetheless.